A Johannesburg saint tweeter, @PigSpotter, has come in for a lot of stick lately.

PigSpotter debuted on Twitter at the end of July this year, and in the space of less than two months, they’ve racked up over 11 000 followers, and that figure is growing at a rate of a few hundred per day.

That’s because PigSpotter provides an essential, free service to the mobile citizenry of the greater Johannesburg metro area.

PigSpotter spots pigs. More specifically, pigs in uniform, behind camera lenses.

And now the police want him arrested. Apparently the bone (eisbein, most likely) of contention is the tweeters apparent use of porcine nomenclature to describe said law enforcement officers. Is that illegal?

Police have made vehemently clear on a number of occasions that the spirit of speed trapping is not making money, but slowing motorists down in order to save lives, right? That’s an idea that should be fully supported.

Surely PigSpotter’s reports slow people down? Doesn’t the extreme level of police anger on this subject reflect a contradiction of their stated intention behind speed trapping?

Are the actions of PigSpotter illegal? Does non-abusive tweeting not fall under the protection of freedom of speech? And if it does lapse into the territory of abusive language (which would be very difficult to argue), is libel an offense for which one can be arrested?

How is pig spotter’s information different from Road Traffic Authority signage that indicates a stretch of highway has speed trapping installations on it?

These are all good questions.

Perhaps police anger indicates that the majority of our police need a paradigm shift away from an obsession with catching people who tease their pride, toward a satisfaction with seeing the rule of law upheld. When an otherwise-speedy motorist reds via PigSpotter that police are in the vicinity, and the slow down, surely the ends of the law have been met? It’s a subtle difference, but it’s important if you can handle it.

GPS units notify motorists of police speed trapping installations. What have the police done to inhibit the mass distribution of these devices? Nothing, and I would guess it’s because the position of speed trapping installations is public knowledge. Similarly, once a person sees a temporary police trapping installation, should they just pretend it’s not there? Erase the view from their memories?

That night, at a braai, should they refrain from mentioning that a police officer was in a certain position at a certain time, with trapping equipment? Surely if the police are claiming that what PigSpotter is doing is illegal, then people like the one I’ve just described also need to also be rounded up? Well, that would be just about all of us.

Police spokesperson, Wayne Minnaar, offered this comment:

“It’s wrong for him to inform people of the whereabouts of the officers on duty because drunk drivers will use other roads and cause accidents which could lead to innocent lives being lost. He could also warn criminals to evade the police, making it easier for them to escape. This is illegal and we could charge him for obstructing and defeating the ends of justice.”

I think that kind of argument is dismantled by this sort of well-reasoned riposte, by Daily Maverick columnist Sipho Hlongwane.

As we all know the first thing that robbers and murderers do after committing their heinous acts is check their Twitter streams.

Furthermore, PigSpotter doesn’t tweet after 18h00, meaning that the majority of binge drink-drivers won’t have the luxury of evading police due to a tweet by PigSpotter. Unless of course they’re the kind of drink-drivers that moonlight as ANC spokespeople.

If the cops were smart, they’d set up their own twitter feeds and post misinformation claiming far more speed traps than there really are.

And for goodness’ sake, ladies and gentlemen of the police service force, try to make a clearer mental distinction between behaviour that offends you, and behaviour that breaks the law?

Thanks so much.

If you’re in Cape Town, follow @pig_spotterCPT

[Picture credit : FailBlog]

[Source : BBC]